Finding Our Own Way
by AppleCiderVinegar
Summary: After their fateful round against Team Urameshi in the Dark Tournament, Touya and Jin have to cope with being the only two survivors. [BL, character death]


Title: Finding Our Own Way  
Fandom: Yu Yu Hakusho  
Theme: Abuse of Power (1)  
Author/Artist: Rena-chan (pinkvader0001)  
Pairing: Jin/Touya  
Rating: PG-13, for safety  
Disclaimer: Don't own.  
Summary: After their fateful round against Team Urameshi in the Dark Tournament, Touya and Jin have to cope with being the only two survivors.  
Warnings: BL.

* * *

In the infirmary at the Dark Tournament, teammates were given beds near to one another. So Jin, after taking a fall from thousands of feet and tumbling down the stone bleachers, wasn't surprised to wake up and see Touya lying in the bed next to him, shirt off and torso bandaged. Careful of his own broken arm and various cracked ribs, he floated out of his own bed and set his feet lightly on the floor. Quietly he padded to his best friend's bedside and lay down outside the covers that modestly covered Touya's legs, cuddling up to his little buddy. 

"Yer righ' lucky ta be alive, mate," he said softly, smiling faintly at his unconscious friend. "I took a helluva hit, but ye were kebabed righ' through."

Touya was reasonably miffed that his recuperative sleep – into which he had slipped after being carried from the field – was interrupted. But he smiled faintly when he heard who it was who had interrupted him, his icy blue eyes slitting open.

"There's me Icey-eyes," Jin said softly, as Touya stirred. The ice master scrunched up his nose reflexively.

"Aw c'mon now Toy," Jin whined slightly, kissing the offended feature of his lover's childlike face.

"Jin, I'm trying to heal," Touya managed to rasp through a wounded diaphragm.

"Ah, righ'..." the wind master said. He cuddled up to Touya with every intention of sharing the bed as they both recovered their strength. Touya sighed, but accepted it. He closed his eyes to sleep again, when he heard

"Hey, hey Toy," an insistent whisper from the lips of his lover.

"What is it, Jin?" he rasped wearily.

"Did ye see me fight?" Jin whispered excitedly. Touya sighed, a thin rattle from his bruised and wounded diaphragm.

"Yes, Jin, I saw you fight. You enjoyed yourself greatly, didn't you?" Touya asked, smiling tiredly.

"Damn righ' I did!" Jin exclaimed with a grin. "That Urameshi's a righ' excellent fighta! Betcha ennythin' he wiped tha _floor_ with Risho's sorry ass!" At that, Touya turned away slightly, his faint smile vanishing.

"Risho's a coward," he said, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.

"Well yeah," Jin replied. "What's yer point?"

"He bribed the committee. Yusuke was disqualified. Gama died for _nothing_," Touya said, clenching his eyes closed.

"Oh now come on," Jin exclaimed. "What, dinnae even give Urameshi a chance! Bigges' prick in tha worlds, I swear. Toy? Ye still awake?" Jin asked softly, noticing that Touya had shut his eyes and turned away.

"...Yeah," Touya rasped faintly after a moment. "I tried to tell Risho that what he was doing was wrong. He backhanded me," he said. And he had the bruised diaphragm and cracked ribs and sternum to prove it, a definitive pattern where Risho's stone-shrouded arm had collided with his already-wounded chest.

"He _what_?" Jin yelped. "Aye, now that be goin' too far. I'mma kill tha bast'rd! He's gone mad with power!"

"...Maybe he'll realize that we're not indestructible, now that there's only three of us left."

"Aye, and what then?" Jin asked, starting to lose his temper (not at Touya, but in general). "Toy, Risho ain't neva gonna change. If'n he does see that there ain't no way we're gonna win jus' tha three of us, he'll get his new rich buddies ta cheat and bribe our way ta th' top. I say we fly out as soon as we're better. Never come back. Leave that bastard Risho all on his lonesome. Whaddye say?"

"We can't abandon him, he's our sect leader," Touya protested meekly, his sense of honor and pride getting in the way. Jin's offer was appealing, but they were duty-bound to serve their sect leader until the end.

"Sect leader, schmect leader!" Jin exclaimed. "He ain't done shit fer us, so I sure as hell ain't dyin' for his cowardly ass. If'n ye wanna stick ta him like an abusive hubby, ye go ahead and do so. Let him hit ye some more. But I'mma tell ye now, I'm comin ta yer funeral and tellin' ye 'I told ye so.'" Even though his temper was flaring, Jin didn't mean a word of it, of course. If Touya stayed with the shinobi, Jin would stick with him. He'd bitch about it, but he'd stick with his little buddy. Touya knew that Jin wasn't serious, so he remained silent. Jin's frown deepened. The silence was broken by the cute little human nurses bringing in a new patient. Beaten almost to the point of being unrecognizable, body bandaged and casted, locks of greasy black hair sticking out of the bandages around his head, lay Risho.

"Well speak o' tha devil!" Jin exclaimed, happy to see their leader in pain after what the bastard had done to Touya. "Somethin' sure did a number on this boyo," he said with a grin, floating over to inspect the damage.

"It was the Kuwabara boy," one of the nurses supplied helpfully. Jin cackled at the irony of it.

"Hey Toy, looks like Urameshi's team pulled a win outta their ass!" he exclaimed. Touya remained silent, his head turned away. The nurses, once they had made Risho as comfortable as possible, turned to leave.

"Wait, the hell are ye goin?" Jin asked.

"To check on the other patients," one of the nurses replied meekly (they seemed to be scared of the boisterous demon).

"Now see here, ye can't jus leave this bastard here with us," Jin said, scowling.

"But...he's your teammate, isn't he?" one of the nurses asked.

"This greasy, lying, power-hungry sack o' catgut?" Jin asked. The next words out of his mouth could make or break their situation. He looked at the agonized body of their sect leader, then over at his lover, who still refused to face the situation.

"Never seen tha bast'rd before in me life."

"Sorry for the confusion," a nurse said mildly with a polite bow, and she and her partner took Risho from the room. Jin floated back to Touya's side, and cuddled up next to him once more.

"He was a goner," he said softly. The stench of death had thickened the wind around Risho, Jin had noticed it immediately. And it would be hard enough for Touya to heal as it was, let alone if their sect leader lay dying a few feet away. Risho had let the shinobi's power over death seduce him, delude him into believing that he had the same control over his own death. He had abused his power to bully his teammates and opponents alike. And the finality of it all was that now Risho, who had thought himself stronger than death, had been bested – killed – by an already-wounded human boy. Touya wept bitterly, the action doing nothing to help his torn diaphragm and cracked ribs. Jin gingerly held and comforted Touya with his unbroken arm, and together the two surviving shinobi fought for comfort, their painful vulnerability – mortality – pressing in on them. With the deaths of their comrades and their sect leader, the failure of their quest to find the light, what were they to do?

"I'm gonna take ye far away soon as yer healed," Jin whispered to Touya reassuringly. The ice master nodded, his sobs quieted. Soon he was asleep, cuddled up to Jin, exhausted from his short while of being awake. And Jin was quick to follow Touya into sleep, needing it himself to restore his broken body.

And when the nurses returned to check on them, they didn't have the heart to move Jin back to his own bed.


End file.
